Going Down The Road With The Leu's

The new year has started and we are getting our act together for the start of this year.  Our short term goal is to travel leisurely through the southwest, making our way east to Red Bay, Alabama.  Red Bay is the home of Tiffin and was where our Allegro Bus was build last year.  We are anxious to drive there for a few reasons.  First, we are looking forward to the great tour of their manufacturing plant where we can learn more about our bus and how it was made.

They will also provide us more insights into some of the nuances in operating some of the more complex systems of our RV.  I am having some difficulties in setting up a couple of the systems properly.  For example, you can program the generator to turn on when the house batteries drop to a selected voltage.  I have followed the instructions properly but I still cannot get the generator to turn on automatically when the house batteries fall to 12 volts.

I am also anxious to have some repairs and adjustments made.  For example, I believe we have a 12-volt regulation issue with our ceiling lights.  We have over 50 ceiling lights throughout LeuC, however, about half of them have failed or in the process of failing.  These lights are LED lights that should last for years.  However, many of them have flicked before failing.  Grrrr.

We hope to arrive in Red Bay in early March.  Along the way of getting there, we will be camping with our daughter, Christina, and her family at the Kartchner Caverns State Park, east of Tucson.  We stayed there a few months ago and loved it so much that Christina and Michael have decided to rent a 5th wheeler and go camping with us over the Martin Luther King three-day weekend in a couple of weeks. Whoo Hoo!

From there we hope to make our way to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.  There is a campground nearby that we would be staying at.  However, it is up around 3500 feet and I am not sure that it would be wise to go there in the heart of the winter.  While we would have electricity there and could keep the LeuC nice and warm, I am nervous about getting trapped there because of snow.  We will just have to check the weather forecast before we head out for Carlsbad.

We then continue east through Texas with a major stop in Kerriville, near San Antonio.  We hope to tour the Alamo while there.

We will continue east to New Orleans where we will be staying a couple of weeks at the Bayou Segnete State Park.  It is located right across the bayou from downtown New Orleans which makes it a convenient place for us to stay while we explore and enjoy the foods, drinks and music of that city.  We will purposely arrive a few days after the festivities of Mardi Gar just to avoids the crowds.

From there we will make our away to Red Bay, Alabama and our stay at the Tiffin facility.  That is as far has we have planned so far because we do not know how long we will be in Red Bay.

Today is the end of our first year in our RV. It did not start on January 1, 2017 as, at that time, we were still living on our sailboat, Leu Cat. We spent 2/3 of the year living on Leu Cat until we sold it on Aug 30. During that period, we sailed from Grenada, which is just north of South America, up through the West Indies visiting such islands as Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Guadeloupe, Sint Maarten, St. Croix, St. Thomas, St Johns and finally returning to Sint Maarten in hopes of sailing across the North Atlantic to the Mediterranean. During this time, we were visited by our dear friends, Portia and Steve and then by Valerie and Joe. We also spent a week with our blog friends, Rich and Brent, who lived on St Croix and had so graciously invited us to stay with them.

When we returned to Sint Maarten we retrofitted Leu Cat in preparation of making our North Atlantic crossing. Once we finished the retrofit, we watched the weather and waited, waited and waited some more for a decent weather window to make a safe crossing. Alas, it was not to be due to the many, many horrific storms that swept the North Atlantic, making a safe passage problematic.

The thought of spending a third straight year in the Caribbean in hopes of making a crossing to the Mediterranean in 2018 was not appealing so we decided to sell Leu Cat and return to living on land. This was not an easy decision since we loved Leu Cat so much, as well as the wonderful sailing lifestyle we had lived for the last 10 years. Nevertheless, we felt it was time to move on and the decision was made.

In August, we found buyers who loved Leu Cat and we believed would take good care of her. They were going to sail Leu Cat to her new home in North Carolina in February 2018 when the sailing conditions would be good for such a passage. We even agreed to help crew her during that passage and assist them in getting to know the various systems that made Leu Cat such a great boat.

Unfortunately, it was not to be because Hurricane Irma hit St Maarten in early September, destroying the island with winds up to 225 mph. Along with the island, Irma also destroyed hundreds of boats, including Leu Cat. While we no longer owned Leu Cat, we were devastated since she was our home, our island of safety as we circumnavigated the world and was part of our family for so many years.

Shortly after selling Leu Cat we bought LeuC, our 40-foot Tiffin Allegro Bus and moved on board during the first week of September. Since then, we have driven about 6,000 miles, touring the southwest and visiting family and friends along the way. Our tour took us from Mesa, Arizona, where we bought LeuC, to Tucson, then to New Mexico, and up to Denver, Colorado. We returned to Tucson and then continued on to Southern California, up to Sacramento, California, back to Tucson and finally, returning to California to spend the Christmas holidays in the San Francisco Bay area.

We have visited with each of our three children and their families, seen many friends that we had not seen in years and met many other R/Vers’ along our way. This was all done during the last few months of 2017. Whew!

As you can see, it has been a very hectic year for us, with many, many significant changes. But it has also been very rewarding year meeting new people and making new friends.

We are in the process of planning our 2018 travel year which will have a heavy emphasis on touring the South, the East and the Midwest. With luck, we may make it up to Canada and visit some of our old cruising friends who now live there. Time will tell…

We have been impressed with the amount of wildlife that roam the Del Valle Recreational Area, where we have been staying. Besides the many birds, including raptors that circle overhead, Canadian geese that walk over the parkland grasses and either swans or white cranes that swim across the long reservoir that is the heart of the recreational area, we have spied or been warned about numerous other animals.

The largest have been the black tailed deer that scamper about. You have to drive the roads of the park very carefully and slowly in order to avoid running into them. On three or four occasions we have had to brake our rental car hard to avoid hitting them. They not only range over the open flanks of the high ridges that soar above us but wander casually through the campground. They are shy of people and scamper away when they see you approaching but they leave their droppings as a reminder that we are the visitors and they own the landscape that we so admire.

We have also have had to brake and patiently wait as flocks of wild turkeys strut across the road, letting us know that they are the royal family and as mere subservient beings, we need to keep our distance. They are plump, fat even; giving proof that they are well fed living off the land here in the park. Each time we have seen them, I did not have my camera available so I am without any photos to share with you. But I am hopeful that before we leave in a week, that I will have captured these large birds in a photo that I can post with this blog.

The last type of animal we have seen have been cats. I have come across feral cats with bushy tails and a slightly larger bobcat that scampered across the road. So far, we have been lucky and have not come across any mountain lions. However, our daughter, Heather, was warned about a mountain lion sighting while walking her dog, Stanley, by a couple that had seen one only a few minutes before. Needless to say, she immediately turned away and returned to our bus, safe and sound. Mountain lion sightings are not to be taken lightly. These cats are dangerous and do have a history of attacking people. In fact, back in the 1990s, when we lived in Lake Forest, down in Orange County in Southern California, we had a schoolmate of our daughter, Christina, being attacked by a mountain lion while she and her family were hiking along a trail in the Casper Wilderness Area a few miles from our house. The little girl did survive but was horribly mauled by the lion before being saved by her dad.

I am not sure what other wild animals we will see before we leave but if and when we do, I hope I will have my camera with me so I can capture the sighting and share it with you.

The weather continues to be sunny and beautiful during these last few days of 2017. For this week, we have our daughter Heather and her foster daughter, Victoria, staying with us. This is the first time we have had other people staying with us. At times, it is an adventure since Victoria has only just turned 1 years old. The floor can be a landmine with plastic letters and numbers, books and toys strewn around, along with a playpen and highchair, making stepping a challenge. So far, none have been broken as we dance around them, making our way around the living room. It has been great spending time with both our girls since we usually do not get much time to see them.

While the skies have been cloudless for the most part, letting lots of sunshine shine down on us and warming up the afternoons to the upper 60s, it also allows the warmth of the land to escape at night. This results in the lows creeping down onto the low 30s. In fact, this morning everything was covered with a heavy frost as the outside thermometer read 27 degrees! Brrrrrr, that is cold!

When the outside temperature drops to freezing, our three heat pumps turn off to prevent their fins from frosting up. It a word, they STOP working. When that happens, we have to rely on our electric fireplace and heated floors to keep warm. The fireplace alone keeps the bus relatively warm, somewhere in the low 60s when the outside temps are in the 30s. However, with both the floor and fireplace working in tandem, the bus stays nice and warm, somewhere in the low 70s.

The only trouble with using the floor heating is that we have to roll up the large rug that we have in our living room because keeping it on the floor will overheat the floor if we don’t. We prefer to have the rug down because Victoria is now learning to walk, and without it, the porcelain tiles are too slippery to support her tentative steps. Thus, we roll the rug up at bedtime and lay it down each morning.

It is all in a day of the lives of R/Ver’s.

This is a continuation of yesterday’s blog comparing our living on a sailboat to our limited experiences living in a RV. This is a first blush comparison since we lived on our sailboat for about 10 years while only living in a RV just over 100 days. One of our blog readers was anxious to get this perspective from us and we thought it a good idea, so here it.

Another difference between the two experiences is that we have found the sailing community to be a much more closer knit society than the RV society. While, at times, we have found some R/Ver’s to be very outgoing and we have enjoyed spending time with them either at our campsite or at theirs, we have discovered that most R/Ver’s tend to keep to themselves more so than cruisers. We have not stayed in any RV parks, where RVs are squeezed in one next to the other, so we have no direct experience regarding that venue. However, we have been told that at many of these parks, the R/Ver’s still tend to keep to themselves. We find this hard to believe as some of the RV parks have community centers where social events are held throughout the week. However, a number of people we have talked with have provided this insight.

With the cruising community, it is typical that when you enter an anchorage which has one or more boats already anchored, that you hop in your dinghy and introduce yourselves. Many times, you will recognize a boat and her crew since most world cruisers follow the same general paths on their sail around the world. It was also very typical that either you or others would host a Sundowners’ get together and many times these would last well into the night.

We believe that the cruising community, in general, is so tightly knit because we all recognized that when you are out on your boat in the middle of the ocean, other cruisers are your first line of defense when you need help. Also, many of the places you sail to are so remote that getting spare parts or expertise to address an issue is impossible or very difficult. As a result, we all tend to share what we have or offer our limited expertise to each other. This results in cruisers being much more outgoing and brings the cruising community together.

R/Ver’s have the luxury of having parts stores in just about every town and city, along with various service centers or, in a pinch, truck repair facilities that can at least get you back on the road so that you can drive to a service center which can offer the precise expertise required. You may have to wait a while before that expertise can get to you but you are safe, comfortable and can provision readily while you wait. Because of this ability to fend for oneself, we believe this is the reason that R/Ver’s tend not to bond with other R/Ver’s at each campground.

The exception to this is the famous annual Quartzsite, Arizona Jamboree that occurs each January. We have been told that over 100,000 people in all types of RVs make the annual migration to this festival with nightly get-to-togethers and parties being common. The advantage of being able to cover 100s of miles or even thousands of miles to participate in the annual event is contrary to those who live in a sailboat.

We also understand that various RV associations hold periodic gatherings at regional or national locations allowing R/Ver’s who share a common interest can get together and bond.

The closest a sailing couple comes to such a gathering would be the end of a rally where a large group of sailboats who have signed up to make a similar passage during a specified time period, get together the successful passage. We participated in a couple of such rallies, including the one that went from Tonga to Opau, New Zealand and another one which went from Vanuatu to Bundaberg, Australia. There was a third rally we participated in that went from Darwin, Australia to Singapore but we bailed out on that one after the second stopping point because there were just too many sailboats, which made the anchorages untenable.

We hope that these perspectives offer some insights into the respective lifestyles between living on a sailboat versus living on a RV. We do enjoy each lifestyle and have no regrets in doing both. In fact, we do recommend that if either of these lifestyles appeal to you that you give it a try. Life is just too short, fragile and unpredictable to not try one. You will be enriched with experiences that most people only dream about.

Now that we have lived in our RV for over 100 days, we have been asked to compare our views of living on our sailboat to living in our RV. That is great suggestion because the experiences, while sharing some basic similarities, are for the most part, very different. Thus, the next couple of blogs are dedicated to addressing this comparison.

Regarding the similarities, there really are not many. The really big similarity is that they are both radically alternative lifestyles based on a nomadic vision. No longer tied to living in one place, they allow us to travel and explore new places, experience different cultures and meet new people. This excites us and has been very rewarding because it has enhanced our understanding how people live and what makes up this world.

Quite frankly, through all of our travels our faith in mankind has been restarted. Prior to starting up this lifestyle, we had a very jaded view of the world, with this view heavily influenced by what we saw on the nightly news. While we recognize that there are bad people in this world, we discovered that most people share many of our core values. Most are just trying to live their lives, feed and protect their families and make the future a better place for their children. Most people we met, and this is especially true outside of the US, are very tolerant of one’s political and religious views. People in the US seem to us to be more rigid on these two issues and we believe this is due to the divisive polarization that has gripped the US.

We also have discovered the poorer the people, the more generous they are. As people have more personal belongings and wealth, the more they hoard and less generous they are. This is not always true, as we know a number of wealthy people who are very generous; but in general, this is what we have found.

The dissimilarities between living in a RV and living on a sailboat are many. We found the sailing lifestyle to be much more relaxing and slow moving. You just can not move fast when you are limited to 10 knots of speed or less. When you are passage making, you are not confined to “staying between the lines” as you are when you are driving down the road in a RV. Thus, sailing is mostly stress-free and easy. Manning the helm, whether during the day or at night, was our most enjoyable time while passage making. One occasionally glanced at the sea and the area around you to make sure there was no land, shallow water or other vessels near you and then spent the rest of the time, reading, listening to music, resting or thinking/daydreaming. We would also spend some time playing with the various lines that trimmed the sails and in that process, we learned how to achieve the best sail trim in various wind and sea conditions. It was a never ending learning experience that I really enjoyed.

While filled with many complex systems, I discovered that most of the systems on a sailboat I could work on to fix or improve on. This has not been the case with the RV. The systems on the RV are so much more complex and governed by electronics that most people cannot work on them to any great extent. Minor adjustments are possible but if one of these components breaks or malfunctions, you need to call in an expert to fix it. Case in point: we have two toilets in our RV. The one in the powder room is currently malfunctioning because a sensor that governs when to open or close a ball cover is misaligned. The ball cover is what allows the waste to leave the toilet bowl and flush down into the waste tank. Thus, when you flush this toilet, the ball cover opens and allows the waste to flush out, it then closes but immediately reopens again because the sensor is misaligned. Thus, the toilet never stops flushing and if allowed to continue, would quickly empty our fresh water tank and overflow the black water waste tank. Not good! The operational manual says that if this happens, you need to call a certified technician to fix it! When I do try to make arraignments to have it fixed, I am told that the first opening is 10 weeks from now! Grrrr! As it turns out, the RV market is rapidly expanding and there are too many people operating RVs than the service industry can service, resulting in long delays.

Another difference is driving instead of sailing. When one is driving a 40-foot-long, 40,000-pound vehicle 60 to 65 mph down a road with other vehicles zooming by, one needs to be very focused. It is not carefree and easy. You only have a couple of feet on each side of you before you leave your lane, potentially crashing into a vehicle next to you. Plus, you are driving amongst other vehicles with many of them that should not be on the highway. Every time we drive our RV, we comment on how crazy the drivers are as they zip in front of you, cutting you off and forcing you to brake to avoid an accident. This is just not the case in sailing a sailboat, unless you are in a race and we never raced! Thus, while we love looking at the scenery as we drive down the road, it can be very anxiety providing and certainly much more stressful than sailing.

Outside of getting service done on our vehicle, we find that getting groceries or other supplies is much, much easier while living in our RV. We have a small car that we can use to drive to a supermarket or store to get whatever we desire. This is not possible in a sailboat simply because many of the places we sailed to did not have a supermarket or store. Even if a supermarket or store was nearby, getting to it on a sailboat is much more difficult. One has to use your dinghy to get to the beach, land the dinghy usually through surf, pull the dinghy up the beach and then secure it to a tree or rock so the high tide does not carry it away. Then you need to figure out how to get to the supermarket or store since most of the time they are not located on the beach. Furthermore, many times when we arrived at the supermarket or store, they did not stock what we wanted and had to settle for some type of alternative. Then the chore of returning to the dinghy, loaded down with provisions, fighting your way through the surf and then returning to the boat needs to be done. All of that is before you get the provisions up to and on the boat and finally put away. We were always exhausted by the time shopping was over!

More to follow tomorrow…

We would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.  No matter your religious beliefs, this is the time of year that we all gather with family and express our love to each other and thanks for being able to be with friends and family.

Our case is no different than most others, as we returned to our campground in Del Valle Recreational Area near Livermore, California to be near two of our kids and their families.  In fact, shortly after we arrived at our campsite and had settled LeuC in for her two week stay, we were joined by our daughter, Heather, and her 1 year old foster child, Victoria.  They will be spending the holidays with us since Heather is taking holiday and vacation time off from work to be with us.  Whoo Hoo!

The next day, we all piled into Heather’s car, armed with lots of presents, and drove over to David Paul’s and Allison’s house, in San Ramon.  We are spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with them at their house.  It is all about family!

For Christmas Eve dinner David Paul made a wonderful turkey dinner with gravy and all the trimmings.  Mary Margaret added her famous cranberries to the feast.  Paired with delicious wines and lots of laughter and smiles, it was a very special time.

Once the dishes were removed and put into the dishwasher, a surprised visit from Santa Claus occurred.  Well, it really was Grandpa Leu dressed up in a Santa’s outfit for the benefit of Victoria and Molly.  Heather had twisted my arm to act the roll.

Next, the huge pile of presents under the tree were exchanged with David Paul hosting the passing out of the presents.  Molly, being only three plus months old, was taking it all in with big eyes, but it was Victoria who really got into the swing of things by helping to open the presents and playing with the big bows and ribbons.  What a hoot!

Getting Ready To Open Presents!

The next morning was Christmas and all of the stockings that had been hung by the chimney with care were now stuffed with goodies.  While Santa was accused as doing the stuffing, I suspected that it was Allison following the tradition she grew up with as a child.  How sweet!

In the afternoon, we all trooped over to Allison’s sister’s house to partake in a huge Christmas dinner with their extended family.  With Allison and Heather’s parents, Heather’s husband, Joe and his parents and his brothers and their spouses and girlfriends, along with lots of children and even a great grandmother (on Joe’s side of the family) who only spoke Spanish, it was a true family Christmas.  The warmth and love was just oozing!

Everyone brought a dish to serve and Joe and Phil (Allison’s dad) grilled beef roasts on the BBQ grill.  Joe is in the wine and spirits distribution business so we were blessed with all kinds of great wines and spirits and festive cocktails trimmed with cranberries, thyme, grapefruit and limes!

The Ladies All Dressed Up With Festive Skirts To Celebrate The Occasion

Once stuffed with food, drinks and love, we all said our goodbyes and returned to our respective homes and beds, looking forward to a long winter’s night.

David Paul and Molly, Heather and Victoria

We hope that you all also had a warm and loving Christmas and wish you the very best for the season!

 

 

Today an old co-worker and friend, Mohinder, came over to Carolyn and Joyce’s house to pick me up for lunch. I had last seen Mohinder about 15 years ago, well before Mary Margaret and I started our sailing adventure. Thus, while the girls continued their quest to finish their Christmas baking, I and Mohinder took off for lunch.

Mohinder is a wonderful example of the benefits of immigrants coming to the US as he immigrated from India shortly have he graduated from university. After arrived, he decided to get his Masters Degree in Engineering from University of California at Berkeley. He eventually ended up working for the State of California and when I joined the State, he was in charge of a regional office’s hazardous waste facility permitting program.

He and I almost immediately became good friends because we both had strong “can do” attitudes and worked cooperatively in addressing many issues through the years of state service. Mohinder retired about 5 years ago and since has been enjoying world travel with his wife, Surinder.

Together, they raised two children who have since grown and have become medical doctors who also live in Sacramento. Mohinder and Surinder are expecting their first grandchild next year.

It was so great to have lunch with Mohinder and catching up after all of these years. He and Surinder now live in West Sacramento on a lake next to the ship channel that runs through the delta on 5 acres of property. He has invited Mary Margaret and I to come and stay with them as they have plenty of room on their property for our bus. It was a very kind and generous offer and maybe, someday, we will do that.

Tomorrow we return to our campground near Livermore, California at the Del Valle Recreational Area. Our daughter, Heather and her foster child, Victoria, will be coming to stay with us over the holidays.

Yesterday we left our campground at the Del Valle Recreational Area to drive up to Carmichael which is a suburb of Sacramento. One is only allowed to spend 2 week periods at the campground and must wait two days before you are allowed another two week period. Thus, we decided to drive up to Carmichael to visit with our dear friends, Carolyn and Joyce, two sisters who we have known for the last 33 years before returning to Del Valle. Mary Margaret and Carolyn were nurses together at American River Hospital in Sacramento when they first met back in 1984.

We love these ladies very much as they are such warm and generous people. I put people into one of two groups: “givers” and “takers”. They are firmly in the “givers” group because they have a long history of taking care of and looking out for their friends, neighbors and family. They are the epitome of loving generosity. Now do not get me wrong, like all of us, they have number of funny little quirks. But it is those quirks that I love and they are always a hoot to be around.

Two of their quirks is that they are both very feisty and opinionated. Thus, each time we get together, we discuss all kinds of issues and they share their positions with such passion. This is a characteristic that is shared by Mary Margaret and is what I love about all three of them.

Each time we come, we discover that Carolyn has baked a couple of her phenomenally delicious New York styled cheesecakes. One she serves as dessert when we are here, the other, if I behave myself, is presented to us when we leave. Needless to say, I am like a little puppy dog trying to be good whenever we come. I really love her cheesecake!

Today, Mary Margaret and Carolyn spent the day baking away and they will do even more tomorrow. The stacks of various types of Christmas cookies and bread are starting to pile up. They both love cooking and baking such treats is a joy for Mary Margaret. Being of Hungarian decedent, she makes a number of unique cookies that our family loves. Yum!

While the ladies tied up the oven with baking, I fired up our BBQ grill to cook a standing rib roast that Carolyn bought for dinner tonight. I have never grilled a rib roast before but it turned out great and pared very well with the mashed potatoes and gravy (made from the roast drippings) string beans and cauliflower that Carolyn made. Double Yum! Of course, it was all crowned with the yummy cheesecake that I had dreamed off all day. Triple Yum!

Tomorrow, I will be getting together with another fellow who I used to work with back when we lived in the Sacramento area and I worked in the Deukmejian Administration. Mohinder used to be in charge of permitting hazardous waste facilities for one of the state’s Regional Offices back then and my engineers used to provide technical support in this permitting process to him and his staff. It has been at least 15 years since we have last met so I am looking forward to seeing him again.

As we get ready to zip up to Sacramento for a few days, Mary Margaret was able to get another day of baking in. To do this, we drove over to David Paul’s and Allison’s house in San Ramon. Mary Margaret wanted to use their nice large oven. It is a conventional, electric element oven that Mary Margaret prefers. We only have a microwave/convectional oven in LeuC and Mary Margaret is not a great fan of it.

While she was baking the day away, I ran a number of errands, including a stop at Costco, to get a large chicken pot pie for dinner. I am not usually a fan of chicken pot pies but Costco makes a great one. It is huge! It only costs $10 but easily feeds a family of eight with each person getting a large serving. It is stuffed full of chicken (they make this pie on site, using that day’s rotisserie chicken that were not sold), and vegetables, all covered in a flakey, tasty crust. Yum!

We also had the added benefit to spend time with our kids and granddaughter, Molly, once they returned home from work. It was great!

Tomorrow, our first two week stint at the Del Valle Recreational Area campground comes to an end. They only allow one to stay for two week stretches. Thus, tomorrow we drive up to Sacramento for a few days to visit with our dear friends, Caroline and Joyce. We will return for another two weeks at Del Valle this Saturday, for our second and last two week period.